Prima Materia
by VolatileSublime
Summary: The glitter on the snow/ The place to always go/ Do what you will, Do what you will... The vision and the voice/ The view from Devil's Tower/ The snake with tail on tongue/ The broken silver wand... lyrics from Magick by Klaxons


Title: Prima Materia

**Title:** Prima Materia  
**Pairing/characters:** Gwen Flail... and Rabi, after some muse-wrestling. xD  
**Theme Set & #:** Water, #40 - Magic  
**Length:** 2, 466 words THAT IS OVER SEVEN PAGES IN WORD, OKAY? ...Then again, I used a fairly big font to keep myself from going blind while I read and re-read each line.  
**Fandom:** D. Gray-Man  
**Disclaimer:** If I owned D. Gray-Man, I... have no idea what I would do with it. But, oh, how I wish. It is the brainchild of Hoshino Katsura.  
**Author's Notes:** This is what I get for watching Klaxons music videos while looking at pictures of lightning and telling myself, "You need to get off your lazy ass and work on your themes!" Add a dash of the REST of my music library and a shot of Harry Dresden; shake gently, strain into a Collins glass, and garnish with... a pineapple chunk? I dunno, I just like pineapples. Anyway, yeah, Rabi's kinda acting weird in this one, but I figure creepy necromantic rituals'll screw with anybody's head. To be honest, I didn't want to put him in here at first (I didn't feel like having to write Bookman into this, so let's pretend Pandaman's squared away in the infirmary for something or other, okay? Okay.), BUT in his fabulously characteristic way, Rabi wriggled his way into the fic. Oh, and the reason Gwen falls asleep is because A.) I was trying to cut that scene as short as possible, and B.) I figure sleep is as weird a thing for parasytic types as food is, as in their Innocence can switch from helping them stay awake far longer that the normal person to konking them out as it sees fit, and back and forth. As far as the alchemical/magical things go, I'm on a roll! The cosmology of D.Gray-Man as it's presented in canon is already so fascinating, though. It begs to be played with more. ... Maybe one of these days I'll write something that I'm happy with, instead of saying, _I'm gonna post this because I'm sick of looking at it!_ Maybe. An experiment in present-tense, third person, by the bye.

--

It's raining when she and Rabi arrive at the inn. Nothing significant, barely more than a trickle, but it's there. The buzz across her skin promises more. She's everywhere and nowhere the entire time as goosebumps chase themselves over her flesh; and she can remember that some part of her is immensely relieved the red-head IS there, to take care of all the mundane details. The part that's not being begged and pleaded with, at least. Otherwise, she's just too far gone to care.

_Come out, come out, Gwen-do-lynnnnn_, something both within her and entirely without seems to say, just as the downpour becomes worse. The crackle of lightning and thunder draws her attention up, up, as they walk up the stairs. _How long HAS it been since you've played with us, hmm?_

"It's really comin' down," Rabi says softly, almost reverently, with that unreadable grin on his face. His single gleaming eye darts heavenward, and for a moment all she wants is to ask if he feels it, too. _Does it call your name as well? Interesting, interesting..._ She hisses in a breath and opens her mouth...

But her nerves take over, and all she can do is let out a little chuckle. "Y-yeah." She can't tell if it's because of the maelstrom gathering over them or the tightness of the space -- he's so very much closer than she could ever remember him being. She could, if she wanted to (not that she ever HAD, mind you!) --

Lightning strikes the ground, and it's all she can do to not leap out of her skin. Not nerves this time: It's a fierce and overwhelming joy. "Oh," she whispers, her gaze tracing the eaves again, "that's close."

"Yeah," Rabi mutters just as softly. He huffs out a breath and shrugs. "Guess there'll be no investigating tonight."

"Guess not." Gwen can't quite say she's sad about it. Some part of her cries that it means -- _it MEANS that she can go out, if she'd stop being a stubborn idiot about it. Screw sleep. Screw the dinner they'd be delivering to their rooms any minute now. Screw--_ She gives him a vague smile as she unlocks her room. "Good night, then, Rabi."

He nods once, some inkling of bemusement playing in his gaze. " 'Night, Gwennie." She slams the door on his teasing wink.

Once the scullery maid sidles out with an empty tray, she locks it as well, just to be safe. The pink-haired girl reaches up to rub tense shoulders and gives one of Shishou's deep breathing treatments a try. She's counting off numbers in her head, pacing... And all she really wants to listen to is the song of wind and rain. Electricity buffets the ground again, and she knows all attempts at serenity are a lost cause.

She throws herself into the room's only chair with a violent phrase that ladies of polite society never heard, let alone said. Her eyes trace the window, and she can't keep the glower off of her face as she strips off her gloves. Her hands tremble slightly as she lifts them to smooth back her hair, and she pretends she can't see the tiny lights playing over her fingers. This was going to be a hell of a night.

_Gwennie... Oh, Gwennie... is that what he called you? We like it! It's cute!_

"Shut up," she snaps flatly. Now is not the time. The five words are the only things that keep her from running out into the night a maddened, howling, joyous specter. _Now is not the time!_ She continues to glare out the window and recites the mantra, over and over and over again; and each repetition finds her fingers biting into the windowsill just a bit more.

People are depending on her. Even if they don't know it, have seen neither her face nor her handiwork -- they need her. She's out on assignment now, chasing the ghosts of the Noah and God knows what else. That's why she's not home, that's why she and Rabi are in the Godforsaken middle of nowhere, that's why she can't just go out and play in the fucking rain. Hell, the Finder sent out with them -- one of the very people she's trying to keep safe! -- got dusted earlier today in a scuffle with some Level 2s.

She sneers at the purple-silver light outside to remind the storm that she has responsibilities, and they aren't to any clouds. No matter how deliciously dark they make the sky or how exquisitely they play over her nerve endings.

One minute she's fighting gut-level desires, and the next... The ache in her neck draws another uncouth phrase out of her. Bright sunlight pours into the same window she'd been cursing out last night. Wait, she'd slept here all night and not realized it? Muscles in her body echo the chorus of her neck as she straightens. Yep. Absolutely.

The floorboards feet away creak, and Gwen launches herself into a fighting stance. So not a good idea, she tells herself as more muscles join into the song of painful affirmation. She glares at the intruder, and can't help but gape for a second.

"Oh, good!" Rabi laughs, as casually as if she hadn't just caught him in the act. Clearly he's delighted to see her, even if her posture promises death and dismemberment. "I thought we were gonna have t'send a search party in here for you."

"Um," she retorts, and rolls her eyes through the part of her that says, _Smooth, you idiot._ "More importantly." She lowers her fists and crosses them over her chest, lest she give in to the temptation to hit him really hard. That's not gonna go away any time soon, but she'll manage. Somehow. And even if she doesn't, he's got a hard head. "How the hell'd you get in here? I had the door locked."

His grin shifts from something harmless to an expression filled with cheek and victory. "Bookman's secret," he lilts -- and if he winks again, so help her God! -– before something somber douses all the flirtation in his manner. "Just, uh, after breakfast, there's somethin' we gotta see." He throws both hands into the air as if in exasperation, then amends, "_Supposedly. Supposedly_, we gotta go see it." The brittle shine doesn't leave his eye. He can't quite look at her and instead makes a concerted study of his boots.

"Oh, God," the pink-haired girl whispers softly, as a swift and consuming pain sweeps through her. She feels her whole face pucker with sorrow. "We were too late, weren't we?"

He breaks it off at that, one shoulder darting moodily into the air as he turns to go. "Maybe."

Less than an hour later, they're tromping through one of the fields left fallow this season. Well, trying to tromp. The deluge last night soaked the ground too much for anything above a moist thunk. Gwen tries not to even imagine what this thing they "gotta go see" is. Her mind seems to have other things in mind, because it won't stop supplying nightmare images – some ripped from her actual nightmares and others from battlefields come and gone.

She clears her throat and inquires of the grass clinging to her boots, "What time did it stop raining last night?"

"Not until after one or two," Rabi murmurs in a clipped tone that she can't quite associate with him. She glances over at him, and he shrugs again, jerkily. "'Least that's what the scullery maids told me." A sardonic smile twists his face, and she can't bring herself to look at him anymore, lest she remember the ice that's suddenly overtaken his animated gaze.

"'Course, that actually rather works in our favor, or nobody would've found this." He stops suddenly and gestures at the land lying before them, as if to say, _Taa-daa._

She doesn't make the mistake of looking at him again, but frowns at the miles and miles of mud in front of them. "What?"

He sidles up behind her with a grin that's at once both cheeky and malicious. Looming over her, he flicks his fingers out once more. "C'mon, Gwennie, you tell me. What're we looking at here?"

She wants to scream at him that she _doesn't know, can't he see that?! Why in hell was he acting this way?_ Instead she contents herself with glaring up at him, even as he keeps his face lifted up, away, as to make it unreadable. And then it hits her, and her eyes widen with disbelief and anger. "You think this is my fault, don't you? More people have died, and you're—"

"I'm not blaming you," Rabi cuts in with only a quiet and calm reason in his voice. "Hell, it isn't your fault, that'd be kinda stupid, y'know?" The question has more warmth to it, and a grin pulls one side of his mouth up.

He leans down until they're practically of a level and murmurs softly with another flourish of his hand, "I just wanna know what you see when you look out here, unbiased and honest. A second opinion, like."

"Oh." A heat that she forces herself to ignore rises in her face, and she takes a few steps forward. Something in her is screaming to get away from him, away, away from his strange behavior, the strange feelings rising within her… And just like last night, Now is not the time.

She has to stifle her laughter on the back of her hand and crouches to get a better look at "it." Something odd catches her eye, and she shifts back and forth a bit. Taking a few more steps forward, she sees it again. Yep. "A silver circle in the ground?" She can't quite keep the disbelief out of her voice.

"Wouldn't be silver if not for the water," Rabi replies matter-of-factly.

Gwen doesn't straighten as she looks back at him, squinting into the brightness of the sunlight. "Who carves a circle in a field in the middle of—Oh!"

Realization draws her to her feet, and she sprints up to it. Now that she has substance to put to obtuse comments, it still doesn't ease the chill she's been fighting since he woke her.

She's neither fearless nor stupid enough to cross the circle's bounds – because one never really knows with magic, does one? – but she stays as close as she dares. She paces the length of it and waits; she tells herself that she's only waiting for him to catch up, but. But there's something in the air, a static that makes her fingers tingle and her brain fuzz. Placing one palm against her forehead, she tells herself to focus, focus, idiot – this is work, remember? Now Is Not The Time, the bloody theme for the day.

She forces herself to take a few steps back, and everything seems to clear a bit more. At least now she can think. She tilts her head this way and that as she observes the circle. From faraway it looks plain, but at this proximity, she can note several symbols and sigils lining it. Somehow she wonders if she could possibly know some, but she figures she'll hold back on analyzing it once she's not so creeped out. Once she's not actually here.

Flourishes on the circle itself make it clear as to what it supposed to be. Scales, perhaps even a face on one side. A face eating a tail… The entirety of its bounds is stained with red, and she really doubts that's paint. A groan, and she places her aching head in both hands. Now that she's finally seen it, all she wants is to forget she ever did.

"An ouroborous," Rabi mutters quietly, hitting all the accents in the right places. It's all he says as he pauses behind her, and she knows that this is why he's been acting the way he has.

"Yep." The single syllable is all she can manage. This entirely outing has left her feeling bizarre and almost dirty. She may've only woken up an hour ago, but something within her is so tired… "Do you feel that?"

He's not looking at her, but the pitch of her voice causes his eye to flicker her way. He takes in how green she looks with a sympathetic frown and shakes his head.

She lurches drunkenly to her feet and backs slowly away from the damned thing. "It's like… static. But nothing I've ever felt before." Her crossed arms make a pitiful shield from the oily, crackling sensation she's been left with, but she'll take what she can get. "It's… there's a boundary or something there." Her fingers tighten on the leather of her gauntlets, and she shakes her head. "Someone's telling us that we're not welcome."

He absorbs her words with another nod and a small noise of understanding. Rubbing absently at his eyepatch, the red-head murmurs with a heavenward glance, "I think… I think they were using the storm last night. To… help, sorta."

"To help?" she can't help but snap at him. "To help. To help with wh—"

"Gwennie. Don't ask questions you don't want the answer to." He passes her a small notebook and a set of pencils. Another brief look of sympathy and he whispers, "Sorry."

"S'okay," she murmurs with a shrug. Wrestling the drawing supplies into her pocket, she extracts both cigarettes and matches, drawing one of each out carefully. The fire catches almost immediately, and she take sin her first drag with her eyes closed.

"This is," she jokes dryly and indicates their surroundings with one hand, "what they pay me for, after all." Carefully juggling her smoke from one hand to the other, she begins pacing the ritual circle once more as she pulls out paper and pencils.

She watches him out of the corner of her eye, and when he goes up to scrape the design with his boot, she jerks her attention from the task at hand. But before she can scream at him not to cross the amend circle, he draws back and continues his restless jaunt.

Gwen rolls her eyes skyward in a silent prayer and fumbles with her pencil. The crosses on their chests kept them safe (probably)… but who wanted to press their luck against wild magic? Her fingers jerk as chills run anew over her body. Inhaling another drag, she makes sure to work carefully, fastidiously. Maybe that and the cigarette clenched between her lips could keep her from blurting out the question that lurked in her mind: What were they doing with something like this? And what could the Order possibly do about it?


End file.
